Unforgotten II/What A Day

Just finished the fifth season of the series, and the villain is portrayed completely unsympathetically. But he is imprisoned based on the false testimony of one of the descendants of the people he's mistreated badly over the years. And so the season/story line ends.

The story is written so artfully it's a challenge to see the actions leading to imprisonment as the act of a vigilante. A person who's committed a pattern of abusive and narcissistic behavior for decades resulting serious emotional trauma/damage over generations of a wronged person and has used their position and power to avoid recompense finally gets punished. It feels so right somehow. But it's not. 

It occurs to me that it feels right in large part because it seems that the damage and hurt will always be a part of who they are. And because of that, punishment deserves to be enacted. But those who believe are told:

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

I confess that in my struggle to overcome the coping mechanisms I'd developed to deal with the pain I've carried around, I'd lost sight this promise. I've wasted a lot of time mourning over missed opportunities, financially and relationally. Fortunately, Phil Keaggy reminded me in the first song of his first album he cut in 1973 (both titled "What A Day". I spent most of my high school years listening to that album trying to play a lot of his songs (not realizing that there was a lot of serious overdubbing going on!) .

"When we get Home, our Eternal Home

There'll be no more sick and dying
No one is sad, no one is alone
And there will be no more crying
He will wipe away every tear
From His children's eyes
And put a smile upon their faces
What a happy day when we see
Our Lord in Paradise"

I'm prompted to review all the tunes/lyrics on that first album, and I'm struck by how clearly Phil Keaggy both understood and was able to articulate that understanding in the songs he wrote. And as he's said: "So many years. I still believe."   For me, it might be more appropriate to say: "So many years, so much I never understood about what I thought I believed."